MCLEAN, Va., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Google Trends (www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=the+cookie+diet&date=2009-10-16&sa=X), a Google feature that provides a daily ranking of the 40 most-searched terms on the Google search engine, the term "the cookie diet" was the sixth most-searched term last Friday. The highest ranking term pertaining to the Colorado "balloon boy" incident was "balloon boy throws up" which ranked a distant fifteenth. Besides providing a numeric rank for most-searched terms, Google also rates each search term based on its "hotness" factor. The term "the cookie diet" was assigned the highest rating, "volcanic," while the balloon boy-related search had the second highest designation, "on fire."

"Admittedly, the balloon story was riveting, so it's humbling to know that more people were interested in how I helped a half million people lose weight with a cookie," said Dr. Siegal.

A segment about the Google search metrics for Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET®, hosted by ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson, appears on ABCNews.com (http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8847801).

According to internet expert Barry Schwartz, quoted in a 2007 story on the popular web search industry web site WebProNews, "I was told to think of it as Google noticing a "sudden rise" in a query phrase, that is not in the norm for that query," Barry said in his post. "The higher the rise, the hotter the query is. Google has a 'hotness level' score for these queries, the hottest is 'volcanic', followed by 'on fire,' 'spicy,' 'medium' and 'mild.'"

For each search term ranked, Google Trends also displays related searches exactly as they were entered (typos and all). For the term "the cookie diet," related searches included "diet cookies," "dr. siegal s cookie diet,", and "dr siegal s cookie diet." No other diet cookie brand was included in the list of related searches.

Friday's dramatic surge in interest in Dr. Siegal, known to generations as the Cookie Doctor®, and his ever-popular weight-loss program and hunger-satisfying cookies, was sparked by the Miami weight-loss expert's second appearance on ABC's Good Morning America (http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerindex?id=8844058). The nearly five minute segment featured an interview with Dr. Siegal and Josie Raper, a Phoenix, Arizona woman who lost 120 pounds on Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET® and whose success was celebrated on the cover of People magazine.

Stunning search engine performance is not unprecedented for Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET® which is perpetually in the news. On August 29, 2008, the day that Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin would be his running mate, "sarah palin" was the most-searched term of the day on AOL. The second-most searched term was "dr. siegal's cookie diet." (http://www.prweb.com/releases/cookie-diet/cookie-doctor/prweb1302494.htm)

"After 34 years and more than 500,000 followers, it's immensely gratifying to know that Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet is more relevant today than ever," said Matthew Siegal, president and CEO of Dr. Siegal's Direct Nutritionals, LLC, the worldwide distributor of Dr. Siegal's products. "Thousands of new members have joined our web site, www.CookieDiet.com, in the past three days and we're looking forward to helping them achieve their goals."

ABOUT DR. SIEGAL'S COOKIE DIET®

Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET® is a profitable, 100% debt-free, family-owned business comprising several companies with corporate locations in the Miami, Florida, and Washington, DC, metro areas. Under license from Dr. Siegal's SM Licensing Corporation, Dr. Siegal's Direct Nutritionals, LLC operates the web site CookieDiet.com (99,000 members) and distributes products directly to consumers and resellers.

SOURCE Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET (CookieDiet.com)